Free Republic

By Molly Grace • Published: 23 Sep 2025 • 23:28 • 1 minute read Pedro Sanchez PP and Vox voted en bloc against the plan. Photo credit: Alexandros Michailidis/Shutterstock Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s fragile truce with Catalan separatist party Junts has unravelled after a controversial migration proposal was voted down in the Spanish Congress. The initiative, which sought to transfer powers over immigration to the Catalan government, was rejected on Tuesday after several of Sánchez’s own left-wing allies broke ranks and opposed the deal. The measure had been negotiated between the ruling Socialist Party (PSOE) and Junts as part of...

A pregnant woman in Dublin, Ireland told authorities she is “living in fear for me and my kids and my unborn child” after her boyfriend allegedly threatened to drag her “by the hair of her head to the abortion clinic” when she refused to kill her baby in an abortion. That’s according to court testimony and a local news report that underscores the perils of coercive control against expectant mothers. The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was refused bail last Friday at Tallaght District Court following the September 12 domestic incident in Dublin’s Tallaght area. The 20-something...

A Dutchman has won the award for the most authentic French fries. Photo Credit: Joyce Panda via Unsplash IN a delicious upset, for the first time, a non-French person has won the top prize for the world’s most authentic French fries, at the third edition of the annual International Chip Competition, held in Arras, France on Saturday, September 27. Dutch chef Siem van Bruggen took home the gold for the most flavourful fries, beating out 32 other contestants from multiple countries and competing across five harshly-judged categories: authenticity, creativity, family, chip sauce, and global fries. Van Bruggen is a renowned...

The pro-European party of Moldovan President Maia Sandu has claimed victory and a new majority in parliament in Sunday's elections seen as critical for her country's future path to the EU. Sandu had warned of "massive Russian interference" after voting, saying the future of Moldova, flanked by Ukraine and Romania, was at stake. Igor Grosu, the leader of Sandu's Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS) which secured about 50% of the vote, said Russia had thrown "everything it had" at the election. Opposition leader Igor Dodon had claimed victory even before results came in and called for protests outside parliament...

Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Skylar Thompson was jumped and robbed Friday night in Dublin, Ireland, ahead of Pittsburgh's Week 4 game against the Minnesota Vikings, NFL Network Insider Tom Pelissero reported Sunday morning, per sources. Thompson, who is on injured reserve, suffered minor injuries but is OK and with the team, Pelissero added. "We are aware of a situation involving Skylar Thompson on Friday night in Dublin," a Steelers spokesman told Pelissero. "We will have no further comment at this time as we are working with NFL security to gather more information regarding the incident." Thompson, 28, is in his fourth...

Swiss voters have narrowly approved a plan to introduce voluntary electronic identity cards. With all votes counted, 50.4% of those who voted said yes to the proposal, while 49.6% rejected it. The closeness of the ballot is a surprise. Opinion polls had suggested up to 60% backed digital IDs, which also had the approval of the Swiss government, and both houses of parliament. It was Switzerland's second vote on digital IDs. An earlier proposal was rejected in 2021, amid concerns the data would be held centrally, and controlled largely by private providers. Sunday's revised proposal keeps the system in government...

European officials are uneasily digesting U.S. President Donald Trump's speech at the United Nations this week, where he blasted the world body and attacked Europe’s immigration policies, energy transition and commitment to climate action. Unlike his last appearance in 2020, when China dominated his speech, his European allies were the focus of some of his harshest criticism, getting mentioned twice as often as Beijing. "Immigration and their suicidal energy ideas will be the death of Western Europe," Trump told the assembly. "Illegal aliens are pouring into Europe.” The speech dismayed many in Europe - and left some bemused - -...

Former US president Barack Obama has said there is no military rationale right now for continuing to pummel what is already broken in Gaza, and he said it was unacceptable to ignore the human crisis that is happening there. He said children there were starving and that a starting point in the crisis would be for both sides to acknowledge each other’s history, in a bid to break the cycle of violence. He told a paying audience at the 3Arena in Dublin that where the truth becomes whitewashed, “you lose touch with reality and it puts you in a position...

Slovakia passed an amendment to its constitution that recognizes only two genders, along with other measures, through its parliament on Friday.Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in Oxon Hill, Md., on Feb. 21, 2025. Jose Luis Magana/AP PhotoThe amendment, drafted by Prime Minister Robert Fico’s government, required a three-fifths majority to pass, and moved through the National Council with 90 of the 150 members backing it.It states that Slovakia only recognizes two genders, male and female, and that Bratislava retains its sovereignty in matters of “national identity,” especially in “fundamental cultural-ethical questions.”It also...

European officials fear that US President Donald Trump's new rhetoric on Ukraine is aimed at shifting blame to Europe. Trump is calling on the EU for tougher sanctions against Russia and tariffs on China and India, which Europeans consider unfeasible.European officials fear that US President Donald Trump's latest rhetoric on Ukraine "is intended to set them an impossible mission" that will allow the American leader to "shift the blame from Washington if Kyiv fails in the war or runs out of money," the Financial Times reports, writes UNN.Details As the publication writes, "after months of pressuring Ukraine to settle with...

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism. Daniel became CEO of the David Horowitz Freedom Center in 2025. PM Keir Starmer in the UK, Macron in France and other Western leaders who decided to recognize an Islamic terrorist state inside Israel have tried to pretend that they aren’t recognizing Hamas or helping Hamas.However, Hamas leaders have made it clear again and again that they are and that it’s the result of Oct 7.“The powerful blow that was delivered to Israel on...

Maria Zakharova drew attention to reports in several Hungarian media outlets about Vladimir Zelensky's plans to carry out sabotage in Romania and Poland with the aim of blaming RussiaMOSCOW, September 26. /TASS/. Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has predicted the imminent outbreak of World War III, if Hungarian media reports about Kiev's plans to stage a false flag operation in Romania and Poland are confirmed. In her Telegram channel, she drew attention to reports in several Hungarian media outlets about Vladimir Zelensky's plans to carry out sabotage in Romania and Poland with the aim of blaming Russia. "His office...

Trump To Macron: 'I've always been on Israel's side'. Presidents Trump and Macron held a joint press conference where they clashed over the French initiative to declare a Palestinian state. Yoni Kempinski. Sep 25, 2025, 10:24 AM (GMT+3) At a joint press conference, U.S. President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron offered contrasting views on recent moves by several countries to recognize a Palestinian state. Asked if such recognition was “a gift to Hamas,” Trump replied: “Well, I think it honors Hamas and you can’t do that because of October 7th. You just can’t do that. But we want...

Germany is war-gaming a mass-casualty scenario—up to 1,000 wounded soldiers per day—amid Russian airspace violations and warnings of possible conflict by 2029. Surgeon General Ralf Hoffmann says Ukraine’s drone-saturated battlefield is reshaping injuries toward blasts and burns, complicating evacuation and forcing longer stabilization times.

Friedrich Merz.... He has insisted that Hamas cannot be allowed a role in Gaza’s future and that hostage release and disarmament are non-negotiable. This is not callousness; it is the minimum moral logic of diplomacy. A peace plan that includes Hamas is not a peace plan at all – it is surrender to fanaticism and rewards the wrong side. And here Germany’s historic responsibility comes into sharp relief. No European nation has a deeper obligation to the security of the Jewish people. For Germans, the Holocaust was not a tragic accident; it was a state-driven programme of annihilation, which can...

"The Israeli prime minister’s plane took an unusual circuitous route to New York in an apparent attempt to avoid entering the airspace of countries where he is wanted for war crimes...avoided Spanish and French airspace, according to the aviation website Flight Tracker."

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan became the latest world leader to be humiliated by Donald Trump after he was stopped on the streets of New York to make way for the US President's motorcade. It comes a day after France's Emmanuel Macron was humbled by the city's cops after they stopped him and forced him to wait on the street so that Trump's police escort could get through.... Erdoğan appeared visibly annoyed as he left the UN headquarters ...

If U.S. President Donald Trump really wants to win the Nobel Peace Prize, he needs to stop the war in Gaza, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday. Speaking to France's BFM TV from New York, Macron said that only Trump has the power to put pressure on Israel to end the war. "There is one person who can do something about it, and that is the U.S. president. And the reason he can do more than us, is because we do not supply weapons that allow the war in Gaza to be waged. We do not supply equipment that...

Chancellor Friedrich Merz has admitted that Germany has been 'living beyond its means for years' with experts now warning that the country could face ruin without economic reforms. The conservative German leader has caused uproar after declaring that the country could no longer afford the cost of its pensions system, which has soared to more than 31 per cent of GDP - one of the highest levels in Europe. Merz also warned of a 'profound epochal break' and the need for 'painful' austerity measures to guarantee that young Germans would have any future prospects. Economic adviser Marcel Fratzscher, who also...

Thousands of protesters and strikers calling for solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza took to the streets in Italy on Monday, with some storming Milan’s central train station and clashing violently with police. Italy’s grassroots unions, which represent hundreds of thousands of people ranging from schoolteachers to metalworkers, called for a 24-hour general strike in both public and private sectors, including public transportation, trains, schools and ports. The strike caused disruptions across the country, with long delays for national trains and limited public transport in major cities, including Rome. In Milan, tensions escalated when dozens of protesters dressed in black and...